Operation Juice Box
by Lacrimosa Cruentus Luna
Summary: Byakuya finds out that the other captains don't think he's cool! They also disike his hair noodles! Just how far will he go to prove them wrong...?


**Because an OOC Byakuya is my guilty pleasure. It's a good thing I don't own him or his hair noodles or anything else related to Bleach...anyway, this is for my brother because he promised to buy me Bleach books when I'm broke :) Of course, _he_ likes Bleach and reads the ones I buy, so it works for him, too...oh whatever. **

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><p>Byakuya Kuchiki stared at his reflection, dark eyes just <em>daring<em> a flaw to appear. Finding none, he nodded, then adjusted his hair noodles one last time.

With his head held high in an effort to elongate his neck, effectively showing off his new scarf, he marched out the door and set off for the captain's meeting. Everything would have gone normally if Byakuya had not spotted a speck of dirt under his carefully manicured nails.

Well, that just wouldn't do!

Sneakily, he pulled back into the shadows and whipped out the emergency nail kit he kept on him at all times. It was because he was so well hidden that the two approaching captains, deep in their conversation, failed to see him. If they had, they probably would've stopped gossiping about him. Or, more specifically, the reasons he was so uncool.

"It's the scarf," Ukitake said. "It's definitely the scarf."

Still hidden—and nails forgotten—Byakuya clutched his scarf indignantly.

"I think it's the little white slug-looking things on his head that make him look like a total dork," Shunsui disagreed.

Byakuya actually scowled at this. There was nothing to be done about his hair noodles. They were super-glued to his head and all the noble could do was make sure that they were in the proper position.

"Maybe if he dressed like me—" the eighth division captain started to say, but paused as an image of Byakuya dressed in his clothes filled the minds of all three captains. On cue, they shuddered.

"Never mind," he said.

"So nothing in the world could ever make him cool like us," Ukitake said decisively.

"Well, maybe if he did something wild and crazy, possibly even illegal," Shunsui suggested.

They was a long pause as the two friends stared at each other before they both started to crack up, laughing so hard that Ukitake nearly coughed up some blood (again).

"Like _that_ would ever happen," they said together before walking away, leaving the object of their ridicule fuming in the shadows.

He composed himself in time for the meeting, although he heard nothing. He was too busy plotting away to pay attention to anything else anyone was saying.

Cool. He could be cool. Sure, it went against everything he believed in, especially if he had to be bad to do it, but it wasn't impossible. Why wasn't it impossible? Because he was Byakuya freaking Kuchiki. He was even better than Optimus Prime. Or Captain America. Or...or...well, you get the picture.

But what exactly was the type of bad that he so desperately needed to be?

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><p>By the end of the day, Byakuya had made a list of all the things "cool people" had or did.<p>

1) Spikey hair (but that was no good, not with Byakuya's hair noodles in the way)

2) Tattoos (absolutely not)

3) Potty mouth (he was still far too dignified for that)

4) Massive alcohol consumption (although that only seemed to work if you could hold your liquor, a quality Byakuya did not possess—he learned _that_ lesson the hard way)

5) A job that included smuggling objects to and from the Soul Society and the world of the living (the problem with that was...wait...)

There was no problem!

And just like that, Byakuya found the solution to his predicament. All was well until he stumbled upon yet another issue: there was only one person he could go to for this, and that person was one of the last people Byakuya _ever_ wanted to willingly go to.

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><p>"It really isn't that funny," the sixth division captain said crossly, although he wasn't sure the other man heard him over his raucous laughter. He was laughing so hard his stupid striped hat had fallen off his head and he hadn't even picked it up.<p>

"I never took you for the type to try so hard to fit in," Urahara said once he had recovered from his hysteria. There was still a wide smirk on his face that Byakuya dearly wanted to get rid of in a very inelegant fashion, but he miraculously refrained.

"Will you assist me or not?" he asked icily.

"I'm happy to be at your service," Urahara said as he picked up his hat and dusted it off. He placed it on his head and said, "I think I have just the trick."

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><p>Feeling like a totally badass as he clutched his package (a line that is just <em>begging<em> to be made into a dirty joke), Byakuya ran through the night so fast that he wasn't even a blur. He had what he needed and now the only question left was with whom the plant the seed.

Then he saw the light on in his lieutenant's office.

Trying to muster up all of his non-existent swag, Byakuya walked into the room without asking and found Renji sitting on the floor with Rangiku, a bottle of sake between them. The captain had to swallow his instinctive reprimand.

"Oi," he said, the word feeling wrong as it fell off his tongue. From the look on both lieutenants faces—and their lack of verbal response—it probably sounded wrong, too. But that didn't matter because Byakuya had his secret weapon on the ready.

"Juice box?" he offered, revealing the possible key to his success.

"A what box?" Rangiku asked.

Byakuya hid a smile. Oh yeah, this was totally gonna work.

"I'll show you," he said. He considered himself quite the expert, having taken intense lessons on how to work the complicated contraption from a highly amused Ichigo Kurosaki who had a stupid smirk on his face the whole time, much to Byakuya's annoyance. As if it wasn't awful enough having to resort asking the brat for help in the first place...

But it all paid off because from Renji and Rangiku, word began to spread: Byakuya had goods from the world of the living and his goods were really, really good.

It all became supply-and-demand after that. Within a short time, Byakuya Kuchiki was cool and Operation Juice Box was a success...

...for the next three weeks anyway.

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><p>Byakuya Kuchiki stared at his reflection, dark eyes just <em>daring<em> a flaw to appear. Finding none, he nodded and made sure his bejeweled hat—another import from the world of the living—was covering his hair noodles one last time.

With his head held high to remind people that _he_ was the guy with the juice boxes, he marched out the door.

He had just gotten a summons from the captain commander and was certain that the old man wanted some of his juice (dirty joke number two!). So naturally, when the first words out of his superior's mouth were _not_ anything of the sort, Byakuya was blown away.

"You need to stop dealing these square objects you call juice boxes."

When Byakuya's brain finally processed what he was hearing, he pushed up his (fabulously suckalicious) hat, eyes alarmed.

"But, sir," he protested, something he never would have done three weeks previously, "if I do that, I'll be even less cool than I was before!"

The look on Yamamoto's face suggested that he couldn't care any less, but he managed to stop himself from saying so.

Instead he said, "Why does it matter so much to you whether people think you're cool? You are the leader of the Kuchiki clan and captain of squad six!"

That should have been the moment Byakuya realized that being cool doesn't really count for much or some other corny (and completely untrue) thing like that. That moment should have been his epic epiphany.

It wasn't.

"I don't wanna," Byakuya declared. And that was when old man Yamamoto totally lost _his_ cool.

"Your juice box stunt has crashed the economy!" he thundered. "And more importantly, it has ruined the dynamics of the entire Gotei 13! Captain Hitsugaya spilt juice all over his paperwork so he decided not to do it anymore and his lieutenant Matsumoto is drinking juice instead of sake! Captain Kurotsuchi had abandoned all of his projects in favor of designing the perfect object to open a juice box without a straw! Lieutenant Kira stopped looking so annoyingly emo! All of this is because you dethroned the captains of squad thirteen and eight and stole their coolness!"

"So?" Byakuya asked, silently wondering when Yamamoto started using the word "coolness." Whatever the case, old man Yamamoto wasn't done.

"_Retsu_ _Unohana_ tried to kill _Kenpachi Zaraki _over a juice box!" he roared.

Byakuya blinked. Okay. Even he had to admit that _that_ was kind of weird. The Kuchiki leader continued to stare at his superior, although his gaze was only on his bald, shiny head in which he could see his own reflection. Was his new status worth the price that the people around him were paying?

Well...yeah. Byakuya had never really liked any of them that much anyway.

Apparently, his thoughts were written across his face because Yamamoto had one last desperate trick.

"If you don't cut off the juice box supply, I swear to you I will show everyone all of these pictures of you," he said sternly. He handed Byakuya a file that had appeared out of thin air.

Byakuya flipped through the pictures slowly. To his horror, he found that each one was even more humiliating than the last. He didn't asked how the old man had gotten hold of the photos because, to be honest, he didn't _want_ to know. What mattered was that these pictures would ruin him no matter what he did about the juice boxes.

"Fine," he said after a long pause. "I'll cut off the supply."

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><p>Byakuya Kuchiki stared at his reflection, dark eyes just <em>daring<em> a flaw to appear. Finding many, he sighed, shooting a quick glare at his hair noodles one last time.

With his head held high as a way of trying to remind himself that he was noble and the people who mocked him weren't so it didn't matter one bit if things had gone back to normal he still—oh who was he kidding? Byakuya missed being cool. He'd had his taste of coolness and wanted it back.

So, maybe Operation Juice Box had failed, but Byakuya would find a way to be cool again if it was the last thing he did.

**THE END...?**

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><p><strong>Just kidding. That really is the end. No more chapters. I don't know if I have to add that I don't own Captain America or Optimus Prime, but I should think it should be obvious that I don't. <strong>


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